


Radiant and Glorious

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Advent Fics 2016 [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 09:17:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8744269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Hermione is acting more and more like Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry is sure the solution to the problem is in Malfoy Manor, and he goes and offers Draco whatever he wants from Harry to stop it. Draco’s price is the friendship that he thinks he should have had with Harry from the very beginning—but it requires magic to replicate years of memory.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my Advent fics, in response to an anonymous request that asked for an artifact in Malfoy Manor making Hermione act strange, and Harry going to Malfoy Manor to find out how he can save her.

“ _Crucio_!”

This time, as Harry ducked under the curse and sent a Stunner at Hermione, he had no doubt. She wasn’t acting like just any crazy Dark wizard. The way she launched the Unforgivable and then cackled made her too much like Bellatrix Lestrange for coincidence.

Hermione dodged the Stunner, but barely. She was shaking with silent laughter, bent over with his arms wrapped around her belly and her mouth parted. A small line of drool slid down the side of her lips.

Harry straightened slowly up. The drawing room in Ron and Hermione’s house was full of destroyed books and broken bits of furniture. He’d come here thinking Hermione would be at the Ministry and he could meet with Ron in private to discuss how they could help her.

But now it was obvious that she was further gone than either of them had thought.

“ _Stupefy_ ,” came a whisper from near the doorway that led into the kitchen, and even though Hermione whipped around, that didn’t get her out of the way of the Stunner in time. She slumped to the floor, and Ron sighed as he met Harry’s eyes.

“What are we going to do now?” he asked.

“I think she’s turning into Bellatrix,” Harry said, stepping past Ron as he conjured a blanket for Hermione and then took her wand away. He hoped Ron would also bind her wrists. It was a horrible thing to hope for, but on the other hand, at least that would keep her from launching a spell at their unprotected backs. “That makes me think there’s something more specific to this than a curse someone cast on her.”

Ron blinked and came to sit down at the kitchen table with him, his head hanging. “There are madness curses.”

“And those Healers we sneaked Hermione in to see couldn’t find a trace of them.” Harry narrowed his eyes and shook his head when Ron started to open his mouth. “Right now? When she was cackling and casting? She sounded like Bellatrix.”

Ron took a long, reluctant moment to agree, but he did finally. Harry thought he had only waited that long because he hated to look at his memories of the war. “Then what do you think you can do? There’s no way we can take her to Healers again. We barely managed to trick her into thinking St. Mungo’s was a haunt of her enemies last time.”

“I know.” Harry ran a hand down his arm and stared at it. It was the place he sometimes got a Dark Mark in his worst nightmares. “But since it’s Bellatrix and the Lestrange house was destroyed in the first war…”

“Malfoy Manor. You think the answer’s in Malfoy Manor.”

“Don’t you? It’s the only place that Hermione ever came into close contact with Bellatrix. There’s—you know there are artifacts that could affect her, and Malfoy Manor is the most likely place for them.”

Ron grimaced. “Do you think it might be possession?”

Harry shook his head. “Not the traditional kind, or that exorcist would have found _something_ , even if he couldn’t force Bellatrix out of her body. But it could be that kind of possession he told us about where the spirit retreats to a safe haven sometimes, and leaves the victim innocent and dazed. And it would still be Malfoy Manor that she went to.”

“You’re probably right.” Ron dropped his head and sighed. “But how are you going to convince Malfoy to let you in to see him?”

“Offer him something he wants.”

“You should have kept his wand.”

“Giving it back to him was the right thing to do. But…there’s something else he probably wants. Maybe my endorsement for that business he was trying to open in Diagon Alley last month? Or a ton of money.”

Ron swallowed and looked at him. “I don’t want you to beggar yourself, Harry.”

“I would do a lot more than that for Hermione,” said Harry firmly, and stood up. “Now, come on. You have to move Hermione to a more comfortable place for her to wake up, and hide her wand somewhere she can’t get at it, and I’m going to write to Malfoy and hope that he actually writes back to me.”

*

_Potter, come to my house at six this evening. I will accept no excuses._

Harry had amused himself by realizing that, even after all these years, he could still recognize Malfoy’s handwriting. But the amusement was replaced by a surge of relief that let him leave the piece of parchment crumpled on his desk and Apparate to the coordinates he still remembered.

He ended up outside the gates, of course, with the wards glowing against him. They were visible, sharp lines of blue and white written on the air, which made Harry blink a little. He knew how powerful they had to be to shine that way, and could only conclude that Malfoy must think he had a reason for them.

He hadn’t even raised his hand to knock on the gates when they swung open in perfect silence. The blue and white lines of the wards moved with them, outlining the narrow path he had to walk—not the whole of the curving, cobblestone path that now led to the doors. Harry shrugged and walked it. He wasn’t here to contest with Malfoy over his security measures.

The front door swung open before Harry could touch it, too. It was Malfoy and no house-elf who waited behind its sleek grey marble, though. Harry nodded and shed his cloak onto a hook nearby. “Malfoy.”

“Potter.” Malfoy’s eyes were as grey as the door, and sharp and assessing. The shivering boy in prisoner’s robes that Harry remembered had disappeared as if he’d never existed. Malfoy spun away a second later and began to walk down the immense corridor that led into the depths of the Manor. “I think you know that I can demand a large price.”

“Yes.” Harry had known Malfoy would. After all, it was a Dark artifact—if Harry was right—influencing Hermione, that or Bellatrix’s ghost. Malfoy was risking a lot to simply admit to its existence.

They passed mirrors and portraits and torch sconces and the gleaming doors of what Harry thought were safes, statues and busts and alcoves and polished pillars with jewels displayed on top of them. There were few rooms in this part of the house, apparently. The first door they came to, Malfoy opened and led Harry through.

This was a room of gleaming, polished wood, most of it ebony, so that Harry was startled every few seconds by dim flickering reflections. He resolved to keep his eyes on Malfoy and ignore the motions of his doubles off to the sides.

There didn’t seem to be a fireplace in that confusion of furniture. Malfoy lit candles on all the wooden surfaces with a few flicks of his wand, instead, and indicated that Harry should take a huge chair overflowing with cushions. Harry took a deep breath and did so. Malfoy didn’t sit, but prowled towards him.

“Do you know one of my richest regrets, Potter?”

“Not getting your wand back in time?” From the way Malfoy had reacted when he finally delivered it, Harry thought that was probably true.

Malfoy shook his head. His eyes were sharp and intense and his fingers flexed and his breath came swiftly. Harry slid his hand towards his wand through the folds of cloth at his side. Was the artifact affecting Malfoy, too?

“That you never took my hand on the Hogwarts Express.”

“I thought was one of your richest regrets when we were kids. I didn’t realize you still felt that way.”

“Well, I do.” Malfoy leaned over Harry, hanging like a thundercloud, and traced his eyes over Harry’s face. “What matters is this artifact that’s influencing your friend. It got smeared with blood during one of the Dark Lord’s experiments on it. My loving aunt’s, of course. And it can create a bubble of time. Make something that was true in the past come true again.”

Harry shivered. “Like making Bellatrix return to life in the body of someone she tortured.”

“Exactly. But it can also be used to create a bubble of time that will show how events could have developed in a _different_ past. To do that is against its nature. It’s essentially a beneficent use, and this thing was made for malignant purposes. If we did that, then we would watch how the events in that bubble of time might have played out, and then the artifact would be destroyed when that vision ended.”

“Would that necessarily destroy the influencing it’s having on Hermione?”

Malfoy’s expression changed like a cloud stirred by the wind. “You _have_ changed, Potter.”

“I want to know.”

“Yes, it would. When the artifact ends, so do all traces of influence it was having on someone else.”

Harry studied Malfoy’s face, but he didn’t think he was lying, and it wasn’t like Harry had ever heard of this kind of thing before, so he didn’t have outside knowledge on it. “All right. So you want to create a bubble to go back in time and watch what would have happened if I’d taken your hand on the Hogwarts Express?”

Malfoy jerked his head down, his eyes burning.

“And you need my blood for it?”

Malfoy didn’t seem to consider it worth jerking his head this time. Harry trailed his fingers through his own hair. “You want that enough that you’re willing to watch it alone and destroy a valuable artifact and help Hermione?”

“I’ve never used the artifact for anything. It’s worth something for me only if I can use your blood. And of course I won’t watch it alone, Potter. You’re going to come with me and watch it, too.”

Harry found that his tongue felt forked and dry, and was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He swallowed roughly. “You really think that—this is worth it?”

“I’m certain of it. At the very least, after I see what would have happened, the regret will stop obsessing me and I can move on.”

Harry considered that, about how heavily some regrets about the war had to weigh on Malfoy, and he finally nodded. “All right. Where is the artifact?” He stood up, only for Malfoy to push him back into his chair with a hand flat against Harry’s chest. Harry glared and reached for his wand before he could stop himself.

Malfoy laughed at him. “You need to eat something first, Potter. This is going to take a huge toll on you, and I don’t just mean a temporary loss of blood.”

The fanatical gleam in his eyes as he stared at Harry made Harry wish he _did_ mean that, but he leaned back in the chair and nodded. “All right. When’s dinner?”

*

Fortified by a quail roasted whole and a pie made of rich cheese—Malfoy had insisted he eat it all, but had eaten nothing himself, content to devour Harry with his eyes instead—Harry stepped into the room where Malfoy kept the artifact.

He didn’t know what he had expected. A sword, maybe, like the Sword of Gryffindor, or some kind of featureless box.

Instead, it was a clock, a grandfather clock with a tall front, made of glass and the same kind of polished ebony that had made up the furniture in the sitting room. The softly ticking pendulum inside looked like polished silver. Harry stood in one place and turned his head as Malfoy walked past him to open the front of the clock.

Once the glass door stood wide, Harry could see the pendulum better. There was a sheering edge to it, and the small floor of the box beneath it was made of something hard and ivory-colored Harry took to be bone, or maybe tooth.

“This is where you place your blood.” Malfoy stepped back from the clock and flourished a hand at it.

 _Yes, I can see that._ Harry bit his lips, because he was attempting to get along with Malfoy, and nodded. “Where’s the blood that Bellatrix put on it?”

Malfoy reached his hand in, casually avoiding the pendulum, and cast a _Lumos_ Charm. Harry could see the dark blood soaked up into the sides, in patches that looked as though the higher plates had some kind of mottling disease.

“And once my blood goes into the clock, it will replace Bellatrix’s and end her influence over Hermione?”

“I believe that’s the way it works.”

Harry decided simply to take Malfoy’s statement at face value—it wasn’t as if he would have had a lot of chances to find out how the clock worked—and stepped forwards. His wand was already resting on his wrist to cast the necessary Cutting Charm when Malfoy shook his head and grabbed his hand.

“Not like that. Like this.” And he jerked Harry’s hand into the clock and let the pendulum slash his wrist as it swung by.

Harry hissed and didn’t pull away. He ought to have known that something so Dark would be activated like that, himself. But it didn’t make him like it any better. “ _Must_ you?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Malfoy, and let Harry’s wrist go. “The more blood that you shed into the clock, the better it will work.” He glanced around as if he thought someone was about to come in and stop them.

Grimacing, Harry let the pendulum cut him twice more. Three was a powerful magical number, and honestly, he barely felt the cuts at first, the blade was so sharp.

When he drew back his hand, Malfoy caught his wrist and murmured a charm over it that Harry had never heard. It covered up the slices with new skin. Harry stared down at his hand and carefully wiped the blood off.

“And now?” he asked, looking up at the clock as Malfoy shut the glass door and stepped carefully away from it.

“Now we wait.”

Harry was about to open his mouth to ask if they had to wait together, and in the same room, when a soft silvery glow surrounded the clock. It didn’t look threatening. Harry hefted his wand nevertheless.

But Malfoy exhaled as though he was inhaling some of Trelawney’s incense, and his eyes shone. He reached out a hand as though to touch Harry’s shoulder, even though he was too far away and didn’t stop looking at the clock, so he was always going to miss. Harry stepped closer without thinking.

“The bubble of time is opening,” Malfoy said it in the same reverent tone he might once have used for Harry losing at Quidditch. “Focus your will on it and tell it what it must show us.”

Harry swallowed, but did as Malfoy demanded, as Harry had silently promised himself he would. “Show us what would have happened if I’d taken Malfoy’s hand on the Hogwarts Express.”

Malfoy shot him a betrayed glance. Harry wondered why, since this was the request _he_ had made and all, _his_ price.

“You could have called me Draco,” Malfoy whispered, in the moments before the silvery glow expanded outwards and swallowed both of them into another world.

It was good that Harry had other things to look at, because there was no way he could have framed a reply to that.

*

Harry found himself in the door of a compartment on the Hogwarts Express that was so painfully familiar his heart banged against his ribs. He swallowed and studied the younger version of himself standing up in front of a _much_ smaller Ron as if to protect him. He hoped he wasn’t about to witness himself betraying Ron. He would never get over that.

He and Malfoy, still in his adult form, were standing as if behind Crabbe and Goyle in the doorway, while the young version of Draco advanced into the compartment with his hand out. “So you’re Harry Potter,” he said. “They were saying…I want to be your friend.”

Malfoy stiffened with surprise, and Harry stifled a chuckle. So, for things to have changed, _Draco_ would have had to introduce himself differently, too. Harry would have bet he wasn’t counting on that.

 _After all these years, he still thinks he was perfectly right._ Harry shook his head as something suspiciously like fondness sneaked up his chest.

“I—I could use friends,” said the ridiculously young Harry, pushing his glasses up his nose. Harry had forgotten that they were already broken and repaired with tape. How many years had passed before he learned the charm to repair them? “I’m Harry Potter. And this is Ron Weasley.” He shifted a little as if he thought he should get out of the way so Draco and Ron could shake hands.

Draco and Ron glared at each other instead. But Ron was the one who said, “Malfoys. So you all have pompous names and you were all on the Death Eater side of the war, huh?”

Before Draco could even retort, young Harry said, “What are Death Eaters? And stop insulting his name, Ron.”

Both young Draco and Ron turned to gape at him. Harry felt his eyebrows rising up towards his hairline. He’d just told Ron that he’d been raised by Muggles, hadn’t he? And he’d implied the same to Draco in the robe shop. You wouldn’t think they’d be so surprised.

He shot a glance at Malfoy, who was watching the scene, so enthralled that he seemed to have lost track of what Harry himself was doing. Harry folded his arms and leaned against the compartment door, which was apparently solid enough to support him if he thought about it.

“I—but his _father_ fought on You-Know-Who’s side!”

“He was controlled!”

“No, he bloody wasn’t—”

“I _still_ don’t know what Death Eaters are,” young Harry interrupted, and Harry was a little amused at the stern glare he turned back and forth between Draco and Ron. He hadn’t known he could look like that. “Either one of you tell me, or you can both leave the compartment. I want friends, not people who are just going to argue with each other.” His eyes flashed for a moment, and Harry knew exactly what he was thinking. Dudley’s friends got into arguments about video games this exact same way.

Those arguments usually never involved Harry, but it would only have been more exasperating if they had.

“I apologize,” said Draco at once, and gave a little nod that was probably aimed at Harry but could include Ron if you really stretched your neck and squinted. “My name is Draco Malfoy. And Weasel— _Weasley_ is right. Death Eaters were followers of You-Know-Who. My father was one of them, but he was _enchanted_ to be one of them. The Imperius Curse. He didn’t have any choice.” He glared at Ron.

“Don’t insult his name,” said young Harry quickly as Ron opened his mouth.

“But it’s such a _stupid_ name,” Ron muttered before he folded his arms and glared at Draco. Next to Harry, Malfoy shifted as if a bee had stung him, but only shook his head when Harry glanced at him.

“I don’t care,” said young Harry. “I want all the friends I can get, you know? I need people to do things like tell me what Death Eaters are, and not laugh at me because they think I’m stupid.”

“I would never laugh at you because I think you’re stupid,” Draco said quickly, glaring at Ron again, as if to suggest _he_ might.

Young Harry turned around, the lights in the train glinting off his glasses. “You’d just laugh at me for other reasons?” But then he shook his head and grinned when Draco visibly faltered. “No, I’m only joking. So.” He stepped back and looked sternly between Draco and Ron. “You’re friends, too, right?”

“If he doesn’t insult my name.”

It made Draco and Ron glare harder at each other than ever that they’d both said it at the same time. Harry felt a pang in his heart as he watched his younger self wave his arms and laugh. He seemed so much more _innocent_ than Harry remembered being, even though he knew about Death Eaters years in advance and he’d essentially manipulated two feuding families into becoming friends.

Malfoy gave a great huff beside Harry, as if he was having trouble getting in air.

Harry had just turned to look at him when the vision dissolved, leaving them both in silvery mist.

*

Harry felt his heart jump at the same time. He hadn’t realized the bubble of time would be so short, or that that one vision would be enough to satisfy Malfoy.

But then another web of color started bleeding across the fog in front of them, and Harry realized he’d been mistaken. That vision was nowhere near enough for Malfoy.

He found himself staring into the Hogwarts library, and his younger self paging frantically through a book. He groaned and slammed it shut a second later. He flung himself sideways into his chair and scowled at the book, and when he shifted, Harry was gratified to see a Gryffindor tie clasping his neck. So Draco’s influence hadn’t been enough to deter him from choosing his rightful House.

Harry tried to give Malfoy a superior glance, but Malfoy was concentrating so hard on young Harry that he didn’t notice. Harry sighed and turned back to the vision.

“There have to be _some_ things here about basilisks,” younger Harry muttered, and stroked his hair back from his scar with a sigh.

Harry blinked. That was knowledge and a gesture _he_ didn’t have in second year. He supposed Draco had probably changed his younger self after all.

Draco came running up behind Harry’s library chair then, and held onto the back of it, hanging his head over it. Harry simply grinned up at him tiredly and sat up. “Did you find it?” Draco whispered.

“No.” Younger Harry hesitated, and Harry felt his chest ache for the look on his face. “I think we should tell the professors after all.”

“And have them lock you up because you’re a Parselmouth?”

“They wouldn’t do that!”

“Well, they’d at least stare at you suspiciously.” Draco sat down in the chair next to younger Harry’s and looked at him. “You know there are books on basilisks here, and what a Parselmouth can do to control one. Even if there _aren’t_ many books on Parselmouths in general. And you have to know one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m behind you every step of the way,” Draco said simply.

Younger Harry had his head down, but Harry saw him smile. And when he looked at Draco, Draco basked and melted in that smile, both at once.

Next to Harry, Malfoy made a noise of pain.

“I know that,” younger Harry said. He flung his arm around Draco’s shoulder and turned him towards the bookshelves. “Now, let’s find something on basilisks and how a Parselmouth can command one after all.”

The vision blurred and tattered again, but this time, Harry was a lot more thoughtful, and vowed to watch Malfoy’s face more carefully when they landed in the next one.

*

“You are _not_ going to take a Time-Turner back and go face Black alone.”

“I told you, he’s innocent!”

“Do the Dementors know that?”

This time, the vision started with voices more than sights, and Harry had to turn in a circle several times before he found the right direction. Even then, it was Malfoy gripping and turning him that helped orient him more than anything else.

Harry inclined his head in what Malfoy could take as a gesture of thanks if he wanted. Draco and younger Harry were standing in the hospital wing, Hermione’s Time-Turner around Harry’s neck, arguing in whispers. Both Hermione and Ron lay wounded in hospital beds behind them; Hermione looked as if she had taken a curse from the wand Pettigrew had stolen. Harry winced and looked back at the pair of friends again.

“The Dementors can’t know he’s innocent, or they wouldn’t keep attacking him—”

“I know!” Draco all but stamped his foot. In this vision, for whatever reason, Harry thought, he looked less pointed and more like the man beside him than Harry remembered him looking in their real third year. “That’s the bloody _point_! They’ll even attack innocent people, like they did you at that Quidditch game! And you haven’t mastered the Patronus yet! That’s why you’re _not_ going alone!”

“What are you going to do? Shoot pretty sparks at them?”

Draco whipped out his wand. Harry thought for a second that he’d curse younger Harry and lay him out on a hospital bed beside his friends—his other friends—but instead, he pointed his wand furiously at the far wall and snarled, “ _Expecto Patronum_!”

The shape that sprang out was a coiling white crocodile, charging at an unseen threat with its jaws wide open. Harry suddenly remembered what he’d thought last time, and turned his head to look at Malfoy.

There were tears on his cheeks.

Harry shivered and turned back to the vision. It was unreal, he reminded himself. The whole point of this was that it _hadn’t_ happened. It was part of the price that Harry was paying to get Hermione back to normal.

That didn’t keep it from feeling real.

Younger Harry stood there, staring, as the crocodile came curling back and lay at Draco’s feet, looking up at them for a minute before it dissolved. Then he turned and glared at Draco. “When were you going to tell me that you mastered that?”

Draco glared. “Well, it would have been _tonight_ , if you hadn’t gone off by yourself and been an idiot!”

Younger Harry rolled his eyes with a huff, and reached out to hook the chain of the Time-Turner around Draco’s neck, too. “Then come on, let’s _go_ , before you change your mind about rescuing Buckbeak.”

“That thing is still a menace—”

The two younger boys dissolved from sight as that other Harry spun the Time-Turner, but Harry—the real one—still saw the soft smile in his eyes. And then they were gone, too, he and the other Draco, into the vision of fourth year.

*

“Thanks to you, my father wasn’t there.”

Harry raised his head slowly. For some reason, this vision had started with both he and Malfoy on their knees, but now he thought he knew why. They were crouched beside the lake at Hogwarts, with the waves steadily lapping at the rocks, and his younger self sat further down the shore, his head down and his eyes squeezed shut. Draco was standing behind him, looking worried.

“I know. I was in the graveyard. I saw all the other Death Eaters. I saw—he wasn’t there.”

“Harry.”

“Leave me ‘lone, Draco. Please.”

Malfoy flinched beside him. Harry glanced over, but there were no tears on his cheeks this time. Who knew what it was that made him flinch? Maybe he just didn’t like being told to go away by his imaginary friend.

When Harry faced the lake again, it was to see that Draco had knelt down in front of that other Harry and shaken him a little. It didn’t seem to have any effect. Younger Harry still had his eyes fixed on the water and that expression of dull pain on his face.

“I know Diggory died. But you spared my father because you figured out that your blood would remove the Dark Mark. And you’re going to spare other people. I _know_ there are others who don’t want to serve the Dark Lord. Like Vincent and Greg’s fathers. We’re going to save them. You’re going to be the reason a lot of people live.” Draco paused, and then added with what Harry thought was an appalling lack of tact, “Even if Diggory didn’t.”

But it seemed to be what younger Harry needed to hear. He let out a watery laugh and leaned forwards, letting his hands once more dangle in the water. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Voldemort—oh, _honestly_ , Draco, stop flinching!—is more powerful than me.”

“Then we train.”

“Huh?”

“Eloquent, always,” Draco muttered, and raised his voice. “Father has access to dueling instructors that wouldn’t come and serve just anybody. But they _are_ willing to work for Father and train the Boy-Who-Lived. It would be a coup for them, even if they can only tell other people in the same profession. Come on and start thinking about how you’re going to live.”

Harry shivered. And younger Harry did the same thing, before he slumped forwards and grabbed Draco around his neck and cried as if his heart would break.

_I didn’t do that after Cedric died. I don’t remember doing anything but being in shock, really, and then getting angry when the summer came and they isolated me without hope of news._

_But maybe I would have if I’d had someone like Draco…_

Harry glanced sideways, to see the real Malfoy and remind himself of what he _had_ had: someone who’d come onto the train and taunted him and let him work some of the anger out. It would be easy to get caught up in the visions happening before him, forget _again_ that they weren’t real, and start thinking silly things.

But he jumped when he saw Malfoy’s eyes fixed on him. He kept staring at Harry even as the darkness came and consumed the sound of younger Harry’s sobs and Draco’s soft, soothing words.

*

A Killing Curse zipped over Harry’s head, and he ducked and drew his wand before he even thought about it. Malfoy was beside him, cowering with his head bowed and a stream of huffing breaths issuing from his lungs.

 _He’s always cowering,_ Harry thought, before Draco ran around the corner and blew that thought to smithereens.

His wand was lifted and his eyes were crazed with determination. They were in the Department of Mysteries, Harry realized suddenly, and he felt his stomach surge up his throat. He honestly didn’t know if he could watch Sirius die again. He’d sometimes taken memories of Auror cases out and put them in Pensieves to watch them again and help himself get over them that way, but—never Sirius.

Then he saw Sirius and Bellatrix in front of the Veil, with younger Harry dancing around obliviously nearby, trying to attract Bellatrix’s attention, and he vomited, although nothing came out of his stomach. Maybe it was being in a vision.

Malfoy flickered his attention to him, but it immediately went back to that imagined battle as Draco called out, “Aunt Bella! Catch!”

The woman spun with her black hair flying around her, and Harry felt hatred consume him like a wicked flame. But before he could draw his wand and try cursing her as he longed to do, Draco did it for him.

“ _Reducto_!”

The blast caught Bellatrix and knocked her flying. Younger Harry cast at the same time from the other side, Stunning her. Sirius ran swiftly away from the Veil and hugged Harry, then turned to Draco with obvious familiarity and said, “The Aurors will be here any second. Let’s get out of here.”

Draco nodded and led the way towards a far corner of the Department of Mysteries that still had fighting going on. He was looking over his shoulder at the younger version of Harry all the time. Harry didn’t think _that_ version of himself noticed. He was too busy hugging Sirius and trembling with the passage of the might-have-been that, here, would never be.

But Harry knew what he saw in Draco’s eyes and slightly parted lips, and he glanced away at once, more uncomfortable than he had been to watch this version of himself break down sobbing by the lake.

He didn’t dare look at Malfoy as darkness claimed them again.

*

“I told you. I _told_ you!” That was the younger Harry’s voice, which Harry already thought sounded different from his, and it was soaring to a height that Harry couldn’t imagine his reaching. Then he gasped.

“I know. But I want to hold still for a minute.”

The light seemed to come up more slowly than ever this time; Harry had the impression that the magic was wearing out as the bubble of time took them further and further along. He knew he and Malfoy were in the middle of a dark bedroom, only lit by a fluttering fire. He was looking at a bed where younger Harry lay with his head thrown back and—

And no clothing on.

Harry felt himself turn so red that only the thought of Malfoy beside him kept him from spinning away. Malfoy would make fun of him, and rightfully. How could Harry deal with anything if he couldn’t deal with seeing _himself_ naked?

Of course, Draco was also naked, on top of younger Harry, moving between his legs, which Harry found harder to deal with. He fixed his eyes on his younger self’s face instead, hoping that would help.

 _Not really,_ he thought, as he watched sweat creep down those flushed cheeks, and the expression of triumphant power in younger Harry’s eyes. He didn’t have to watch Draco rutting between the legs of his alternate self, but he had to watch himself enjoy it.

And it was making him hard.

 _Damnit._ Harry looked around the room, trying to figure out where they were, in the desperate hope that would provide some distraction from the cries and soft moans and naked cocks in front of him.

He didn’t recognize it, though. There were thick white walls with a huge window open on the western side, so Harry supposed it wasn’t anywhere in the Slytherin dungeons. On the other hand, this didn’t look like Gryffindor Tower, either. When he walked to the window, he could see snow blowing down onto immense grounds below.

 _Malfoy Manor. It’s Malfoy Manor and they’re there for the winter holidays._ Harry shook himself and shivered a little.

Then Malfoy’s hand was on his arm and turning him as though he was forcing Harry around with an iron bar. Harry shuddered in distaste and avoided looking at the bed as he stared at Malfoy’s chin.

“Watch them,” Malfoy said. “Or I won’t consider the price paid.”

 _For Hermione,_ Harry reminded himself as he looked reluctantly back at himself and Draco—or his younger self and Draco. _You’re doing this for Hermione, and it doesn’t matter how embarrassed or stupid you feel. What matters is that_ she’s _going to feel better._

Malfoy stepped up behind him, his presence at Harry’s back warmer than the dying fire. Now that Harry was staring, he could see the green and silver edges to the bedcovers. He wanted to snort. Trust Draco to carry the Slytherin theme home and make his room away from Hogwarts proclaim House pride.

Then Harry, well, not Harry but the other person in the room called that, gave a sharp cry, and Harry’s eyes snapped away from the sheets in spite of himself.

Younger Harry no longer looked triumphant or powerful. He looked _transfigured_. He shook and reached out with clenched hands to Draco, who bowed his head and kissed the air above them. It seemed forever, a lot longer than any orgasm Harry could remember having, before his younger self had finished. Then he lay back and gave that brilliant, sleepy smile to the boy above him.

“Come on, Draco,” he whispered.

Draco finished with a shove of his hips and an “ _Uhhhh_!” that Harry thought was much less dignified. But the thought was distant, melting like one of the snowflakes above the fire leaping inside him. He watched Draco collapse and Harry wrap his arms around him, and this was probably sixth year, and there was no stalking or Room of Requirement or Dark Mark on Draco’s _very_ naked arm.

Harry expected the scene to fade as soon as both of them had come, but they lay there and panted instead, and Draco nuzzled into younger Harry’s chest, and Harry held him tighter, and it took probably five minutes before the shadows from the fire seemed to spread wide enough to eat the rest of the light in the room.

In the moments before it faded completely, Harry was sure that he felt Malfoy press a kiss to the back of his neck.

*

With how intense some of these moments had been before, Harry expected the seventh-year vision to open in the Battle of Hogwarts, or maybe the moment when younger Harry would go to his death in the Forbidden Forest. But instead, it opened with Draco sitting at a table in the Great Hall, bodies around him showing that the battle was already finished, his hands over his face.

Harry scanned the Great Hall himself, more uneasy than he wanted to show. In this alternate version of their world, had the other Harry perhaps died because he didn’t have Draco to defeat Dumbledore and take the Elder Wand and then pass the mastery of the Deathly Hallows on to him?

But no, there was younger Harry, sitting down at the same table, on the same bench, his face fierce and wild and old. He stared at Draco and said nothing. Neither did Draco. They sat together in silence long enough that Malfoy shifted impatiently next to Harry.

“I’m sorry,” younger Harry finally said.

“I thought you were _dead_.”

“So did lots of people in the Great Hall! I mean, that was sort of what Voldemort wanted you to think when he had Hagrid carry me in here—”

“But it was _me_. And you didn’t tell me you were a Horcrux. You went off to march to your death and you _didn’t tell me_.”

Draco finally turned to face younger Harry. Harry glanced to the side and encountered a hostile stare from Malfoy. He stared back. “What did _I_ do?” he finally asked. It wasn’t like he and Malfoy shared a connection like the one in the visions, that would have meant Malfoy had a right to be angry about Harry going, as far as he knew, into the Forbidden Forest to die.

“I only just found out myself,” the other Harry whispered. “When I defeated Snape, and then that gave me the Elder Wand—I only figured that out when I saw Dumbledore—”

“ _Where_?”

“I went to this version of King’s Cross Station when I—died. And Dumbledore spoke to me. He explained everything. About how I was a Horcrux all along, and I could go back since I’m also the Master of Death, and since I disarmed Snape and _he_ disarmed Dumbledore, that made me the Master of the Elder Wand.”

“You knew you were going to die. You left anyway.”

“Draco…”

“You left and you _didn’t tell me_!”

Draco was practically shaking younger Harry by the shoulders and screaming in his face now. In the background, Harry saw Ron start towards them with a frown, and Hermione stop him with a hand on his chest.

Malfoy reached out and put his hand on Harry’s chest in the exact same manner.

Harry closed his eyes and tried to breathe evenly. It was unfairly hard to do.

“I’m so sorry,” younger Harry was saying in the meantime, his hands sliding around Draco’s shoulders. “I’ll never do that again.”

“You’re not a Horcrux anymore.” Draco seemed to snap out of his mood so fast that both versions of Harry were watching him with caution. “So that means that you never need to march to your death again.”

“That’s right…”

“So that means that you can’t keep me from doing _this_.”

And Draco leaned forwards and kissed the younger Harry with almost murderous intent, in a way that toppled them both off the bench and left them writhing on the floor. Harry saw Ron turn away with a red face and Hermione with a grin. She even cast a discreet Privacy Spell that meant Harry’s and Draco’s forms blurred into the woodwork in the back of the Great Hall. Harry didn’t think he could have seen them at all if he hadn’t already been watching and known where they were.

This time, the vision didn’t turn into pure darkness and take them somewhere else. It blurred and whirled around them, and then narrowed like a tunnel, and the center of the closing light was those kissing shadows, those wrestling, laughing shadows.

*

Harry opened his eyes in the middle of Malfoy’s artifact room with a sigh. The clock was still ticking in front of him, but Harry could no longer hear any sounds from the pendulum. He supposed that meant his blood had had the effect on the artifact that it was supposed to, and it wasn’t working now.

Harry turned away, his head swimming. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, other than find a quiet place and sit in it and brood for a while. He knew the visions he had seen weren’t real, and in fact, there was no way that he could know all about the connections between those moments that the bubble of time had permitted him to see. For all he knew, the other versions of him and Malfoy argued on a regular basis and didn’t get along well with Ron and Hermione and broke up in a year’s time after the final battle.

But somehow, he didn’t think so. And he had to assimilate that new knowledge into his old knowledge of himself.

He turned, and ran into Malfoy.

Malfoy slammed him back so hard against the wall of the room that Harry squeaked in shock. And then he decided he shouldn’t have squeaked, because Malfoy took the opportunity to plant his tongue firmly in Harry’s mouth, and the erection Harry had almost felt subside returned, and Harry shuddered and opened his arms and legs and lips to Malfoy before he remembered.

He turned his head aside, hard, and did his best to ignore the way he could feel Malfoy nibbling on his ear. “No,” he whispered. “We’re not them. They’re not us. We—we have to remember—we’re not them—”

He moaned and succumbed for a second to the sensations as Malfoy’s teeth found a sensitive place on his earlobe. Harry loved having them sucked, and he couldn’t remember the last time it had happened. He writhed under Malfoy, and it was fast becoming _under_ , as Malfoy leaned them towards the floor and started undoing Harry’s robes to provide a bed.

But that did really make it too much, and Harry grabbed Malfoy’s wrist to stop him and stared breathlessly into his eyes. “We _can’t_ ,” he whispered. “We really can’t. You know that. You don’t believe we can any more than I do.”

“I know what I want,” Malfoy said, breathless, his eyes as bright as candles. “I never expected—I thought maybe we’d have a grudging friendship, or just a _friendship_ , nothing more than that. Or one of us would end up betraying the other. I never thought it would be one- _tenth_ as radiant and glorious as that.”

“But it wasn’t really radiant and glorious. I mean, it was just normal.”

Malfoy stared at him like he was mental. Harry swallowed, a soft click of his throat that Malfoy watched avidly. Of course, what he might have thought of as a warm and normal relationship might be beyond Malfoy’s wildest expectations.

“You thought one of us might end up betraying the other, and you wanted to watch anyway?” Harry asked weakly.

“I wanted to _know_ ,” Malfoy contradicted him. “I’ve always wondered. I thought, when I knew, I could move on. But then I discovered that I have not the _slightest interest_ in moving on.” His fingers tunneled like worms in Harry’s Auror robes, holding him tight, not letting go. “I want to know. And now I do. And I know that I would envy my younger self forever—and I don’t live in envy anymore—unless I at least _tried_ my hand at seducing you.”

“You don’t have to seduce me.”

Malfoy’s head came up like a hunting jackal’s. Then he grinned, and it _burned_. “What if I want to anyway, just to try?”

His hand slid under Harry’s Auror robe, and Harry shuddered and clicked his swallow again. He was hard, and Malfoy was right there and willing, and—

And he still remembered the way younger Harry had leaned on Draco, and Draco had saved Sirius, and made love to him, and scolded him after the battle.

“Hermione’s really all right?” he asked, to make sure, to ease any guilt he might have carried.

“The possession effect would have ceased on her the minute your blood touched the artifact,” Malfoy said with absolute calm, while his hand flicked a few more buttons open on Harry’s robes. “There’s nothing to think about there, Potter. This is between you and me.”

Harry nodded slowly, his eyes fastened on Malfoy’s. And he opened his legs and his arms and his mouth again, and Malfoy took him so enthusiastically that he knew he would have muscle aches for the rest of the week.

Perhaps, he thought, as they rested in the sweat after, and Malfoy’s mouth dangled just above his neck, open and exhaling hot breaths on it, in a short time he could try opening his heart, too.

**The End.**


End file.
